Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Bal Gangadhar Tilak (23 July 1856-1 August 1920) was an Indian Hindu scholar and Indian National Congress politician.

Biography
Bal Gangadhar Tilak was born in Ratnagiri into an orthodox Chitpavan brahmin family, and he studied at Poona and obtained a law degree in 1879. Known as Lokamanya ("revered by the people"), he was imprisoned from 1897 to 1899 for alleged sedition in his weekly Martahi-language newspaper Kesari ("Lion"). At first the radical nationalist was without much influence in the inner circle of the moderate Indian National Congress. However, the nationalist movement was radicalized by the partition of Bengal in 1905, and in 1907 he formed his own movement to demand Indian self-rule. He was imprisoned in 1908, and upon his release in 1914, he formed the Indian Home Rule League together with Annie Besant. He re-entered the Congress movement in 1915 and in 1919 approved of the Government of India Act, urging co-operation with the British. He died a year later.